


In the Steppes of Central London

by htebazytook



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, First Time, Humor, M/M, Slash, Smut, Teenagers, orchestra AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:42:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you guessed AU fic featuring baby (not actually infants) John and Sherlock  in a youth orchestra, then you guessed right!  I think there's some kind of metaphor about steps and maturity, in here.  Either that or I was just desperate for a title ripped from Borodin :P</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Steppes of Central London

**Author's Note:**

> Every section marks another year, just fyi.

**Title:** In the Steppes of Central London  
 **Author:** [](http://htebazytook.livejournal.com/profile)[**htebazytook**](http://htebazytook.livejournal.com/)  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Warnings:** underage sex, depending on your country of origin, I guess; some derogatory remarks  
 **Disclaimer:** <—  
 **Pairing:** John/Sherlock  
 **Time Frame:** preteen/teen AU  
 **Author's Notes:** Every section marks another year, just fyi.  
 **Summary:** If you guessed AU fic featuring baby (not actually infants) John and Sherlock in a youth orchestra, then you guessed right! I think there's some kind of metaphor about steps and maturity, in here. Either that or I was just desperate for a title ripped from Borodin :P

 

 

"Aren't you a little young to be auditioning for this orchestra?"

"Yes."

The clarinetist sitting on the steps outside the hall gives Sherlock a once over. "Right . . . I'm John, by the way." Waits. "You know, most people greet one another by saying 'hello' and introducing themselves."

"Hello, John. You're holding your wrist at the wrong angle. And your fingers aren't bent properly." Why isn't he practicing inside in the green room, anyway?

"You call this making conversation?"

"I—" Sherlock frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Look, I'm only trying out for this thing in the first place because my sister plays here, and our parents were too lazy to drive us to two extracurricular activities, every week."

"Hm." Sherlock just, you know, _doesn't do_ things he doesn't want to do. "So why don't you just pop off down the street to the comic book shop for a few hours instead?" That's the sort of thing boys John's age seemed interested in.

"Well, I mean, I can't just . . . it was either this or ballet, all right? This is fine. I'm not a bloody prodigy, is all. Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"A bloody prodigy."

Sherlock scoffs. "Was _Mozart_ a bloody prodigy?"

John laughs. "I see. And how old are you, anyway?"

"Ten."

John's eyes widen. "Oh. Oh, good, you're ten," he deadpans. "Shouldn't you be running around playing pretend with your friends?"

Sherlock tilts his head. "I don't understand. I'm auditioning, right now."

John laughs again, somewhere between exasperated and amused. "Just, you know, like, playing cops and robbers or something?"

"Ah, I think I see what you're saying. Well, you'll be pleased to know that I am an aspiring pirate."

". . . A what, now?"

"You think I'm joking, but I'm not. I fully intend to be a pirate after I've sufficiently researched the field. I've only just begun to do so, however. But rest assured that one day I'll be plundering booty on the high seas—or, really, certain areas on land, or in the air, even, it's all very technical—and all shall love me and despair."

John is valiantly silent for a good minute before bursting into laughter.

" _Don't_ you think I can do it?" Sherlock seethes, then collects himself. "I will be a most excellent pirate," he says loftily.

John smiles. "So you really are just a kid, after all."

Sherlock can't remember the last time someone had had the gall to call him a kid. At school it's usually 'robot' or 'swot' or 'little professor'.

"Yeah, my sister really loves it here," John is saying, even though he hasn't been asked. "Harry's been taking lessons for years, and—"

"What does she play?"

"Flute."

"Why?"

John laughs. "What kind of a . . . ?" Shakes his head. "I dunno, Harry plays flute because, you know, that's what girls are supposed to play, right? That's what she always says, anyway."

"Hm. So why don't _you_ play trumpet or something equally masculine, if that's how it's done?"

John gives him an odd look. "I mean, Harry's flute teacher is just like a general woodwind teacher, so." He holds up his clarinet.

"So it's just more convenient for your parents, and has nothing to do with what you actually want."

"I'm thirteen. I'm not exactly autonomous yet, you know."

"Hm." Sherlock supposed that having a stepping stool for brushing his teeth at home didn't mean he was exactly autonomous, either, but that had more to do with his atypically short stature than actual maturity. He leaves, climbs the remaining steps and has quite forgotten about the clarinetist until he hears:

"Right, well. Good luck . . . whoever you are. With whatever you're auditioning on."

Sherlock pauses at the door. "The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the instrument is violin."

For the audition, Sherlock plays the Sarasate Gypsy Airs from memory, which intimidates the competition so badly that he wins principal chair more or less by default. At the first rehearsal he sits down without speaking to anyone, flips open the part to familiarize himself with one of the more challenging passages. The maestro had given him a glimpse of the program for the concert, muttered that it was just the tip of the iceberg for what he had planned this season.

The rest of the violins exchange glances while Sherlock ignores them in favor of the music. Eventually Greg, Sherlock's stand partner, is silently nominated for the job of approaching him.

"Sherlock?" he tries.

Sherlock doesn't look up.

" . . . Sherlock?"

Zrrrrp! Sherlock puts his bow down, keeps his violin tucked under his chin and stares at him without actually turning, at all.

Greg smiles affably, although it falters when Sherlock's expression fails to budge in response. "So, er, we were just wondering . . . bowings for the Mussorgsky?"

Sherlock hasn't blinked. "Can't you figure that out by looking at the music?"

"Er." Greg turns back to the other violins, but they all seem to be cowering behind their stands, so he charges on: "These parts don't have them marked in."

"No, obviously not. They're new parts." Sherlock still hasn't blinked.

"So . . . "

Sherlock waits. Then says, because apparently Greg hadn't heard him the first time, "Can't you figure that _out_ by _looking_ at the _music_?" and goes back to playing.

That's the last time anybody asks Sherlock for direction.

Several similar incidents and one nearly physical altercation with an oboist over what it means to be in tune later, and Sherlock is demoted to section player. This does not prevent him from further unsolicited commentary.

*

At auditions the next year, John finds Sherlock engrossed in a book on the steps outside (it was just quieter, there) and uses this for an opening line:

"Piracy not paying so well, these days?"

"I've found a more suitable field," Sherlock says mildly, flips a page. "You?"

"Me?"

Sherlock sighs. He'd forgotten how regrettably slow John was, over the break. "What do _you_ intend to be when you grow up? I'm making conversation." John should appreciate the effort.

"Oh, I dunno. Clearly _you_ would rather bury your nose in a book, but as a normal human teenager, I, in fact, still value fun, and have made that my primary goal in life."

"How unproductive."

John would of course settle on something good, career-wise. Good in that it was morally praiseworthy, and also good in that it was too glaringly honorable a thing for anyone to disregard him.

John folds his arms. "Just in from school, then?"

"No," Sherlock says slowly, closes the book and looks up. "Ohh, this is small talk. I see. What uncommonly lovely weather we're having, don't you think?"

"It's been cold as h—wait, so, you just dress this way of your own accord?"

"Yes, well," Sherlock squashes down the impulse for embarrassment— _stupid_ , Sherlock was in the right, of course . . . Fiddles with his tie. "My father equates success, in business as well as in life, with proper dress. And he's fond of giving me ties for my birthday." Sherlock's father couldn't seem to figure out what else to give an eleven year old boy, but then again Sherlock was a rather odd eleven year old boy. Sherlock did _like_ the ties—they made him feel like he'd acquired some of his father's confidence along with them.

John laughs. "Don't think I've ever heard you so much as mention your parents."

Sherlock shrugs. Why should he have?

John peers closer. "Sorry, are you reading Gray's Anatomy?"

"As I said, I found a more suitable field."

"My God, there really is something wrong with you, you know that? You don't just _read_ some mind-numbing medical textbook."

"You do if you want to learn anatomy. Could be useful. Why—what 'should' I be reading?"

"Well, I dunno, I'm reading The Hobbit right now, and it's—

"Oh, right, that's the one with the little band of dwarves and things? Some elves and wolves and spiders, and then the chief dwarf dies at the end. Quick read, that. I shouldn't waste my time, if I were you."

" _Sherlock_! What the _hell_ was that? It's not okay to just go and spoil it for me, you know."

Sherlock balks a bit at John's intensity. "Making . . . conversation?"

John pinches the bridge of his nose. "That is not how you make conversation, Sherlock. Making conversation about a book would be asking how I liked it or who my favorite character was or something."

Sherlock nods, absorbing. "How do you like it, and who is your favorite character?"

John laughs a bit under his lingering annoyance. "The main one, I suppose. Although Gandalf's pointy hat . . . Well, you've read it, apparently. How did you like it, and who's your favorite character?"

"It was adequate." Sherlock returns to his book, which is far more interesting than any mere children's fantasy tale, although . . . "I rather liked the dragon."

John snorts. "You would."

John is interesting. Not extraordinary or particularly smart. But he _is_ interesting for an ordinary person.

The most interesting thing about him is that Sherlock doesn't buy for a second he's as nice as he pretends to be. Sherlock theorizes that John is desperate to be the nicest, most amiable person possible, even if he does occasionally feel like shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs or, for example, overacting to having a book summarized at him. The effort John puts into being polite is just too staggering for the politeness to be anything but manufactured. Sherlock could never keep up such a painstakingly constructed façade for so long.

Or maybe Sherlock is completely off base and it just came naturally to other people—the social inclination, the _niceness_.

Either way, more data is needed.

*

Sally, the wronged oboist of yesteryear, waits for Sherlock at his chair like she has an appointment.

"Hello, Sally. And where is your mentally deficient sidekick, this evening?"

"He isn't actually retarded, you little—"

"Oh, you're right. He's a violist. The very _height_ of brainpower, violists are, with their very own, special clef." Sherlock ignores her proximity, brings his violin up to his shoulder. The conductor had asked him to come and play again, this year. It was hard to say no to the promise of something new, really, so he'd come back, even in spite of certain persistent cons like the Sallys of the world.

"God, you are such a—"

Sherlock draws in a quick breath to cut her off. "You really oughtn't leave your oboe on your chair like that, you know. Terribly precarious."

"You're—you're—your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

"My mother is a physicist. My father works with the MI5."

Sally freezes mid-jeer to gape at him.

Sherlock shoos her. "Bye-e."

John finds him after rehearsal, hovers while Sherlock secures his music in the lid of his case. "You okay?" There's a barely visible little cut just under his jaw—it would seem he's taken a (literal) stab at shaving, then. Sherlock looks at him more closely. Thinner face, older haircut, more stylishly conscientious clothes. His stance was more confident. Why did it take so long for ordinary people to grow into their own skin?

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"Oh. No, never mind." John shifts his weight. "So, Beethoven three this season, is it? Wasn't it dedicated to Napoleon back when Germany allied with the empire?"

"They _do_ teach history in state school, yes?"

"Theoretically," John says. "But to be quite honest most of my knowledge of history comes from Blackadder."

"Where's Blackadder?"

John laughs, then realizes that Sherlock isn't. "You _are_ joking."

Sherlock closes his case with a neat little click. He leaves the hall, John trotting along after him without being asked—he was rather forward, wasn't he?—and halts on the steps outside. "Where's your sister? You normally wait for her, here."

"Well yes, of course. She's my sister."

Sherlock wonders if that's something that John's parents have drilled into him: 'Stop fighting, she's your sister,' 'Run along and play together, she's your sister,' 'Don't conduct experiments on her, she's your sister.'

That last one may have just been Sherlock projecting.

"Do you resent them?"

John's eyes widen, exasperated. " _Who_?"

"Your parents. They've made you tag along after your sister so often that you barely know what to do without some kind of direction. You wait on the steps for her, and you never complain, at all, about anything. Do you really believe that being the world's most easy-going teenager will get them to pay more attention to you than they do to her?"

"Ugh, just—stick to your day job, all right?"

Sherlock barely hears him; he's still mulling this over. Continues, "Odd, that. Youngest child syndrome is more common . . . "

A bit bitterly, "Right, well, I guess I'm just not cute enough to be coddle-worthy."

"You're cute."

John blinks. "Sorry?"

"That seems to be the consensus amongst the female members of the violin section. I'll need more data before I can make a final conclusion, though."

"Oh?" John cranes his neck to ogle them unsubtly where they've gathered on the pavement.

"Oh, please. You're just being subjected to the excessive hormonal levels that accompany puberty."

John laughs. Sherlock reacts oddly to the sound of John's laughter. Possibly because, when directed at him, it is easy and genuine. It made Sherlock feel strange little halfway feelings—accomplishment, annoyance, competitiveness, resentment, and a swift undercurrent of fear of losing the entire confused bundle. "That's right—girls probably still have cooties, to you."

Sherlock frowns. "The female genetic makeup only differs in that they contain two X chromosomes rather than one X and one Y, as with males." John's just staring, now. "Does that answer your question?"

*

Nervous tapping on Sherlock's shoulder.

"Yes, can I help you, Molly?"

"Oh!" she laughs, as though it's a surprise to discover that Sherlock is in fact animate. "Sherlock! _Hi_ . . . um, look, might I borrow a pencil? It's just I've got to jot down that subito piano the maestro asked us to put in after already having us mark it up to mezzo before, honestly he's just so changeable . . . "

"Lost the one I gave you last week, already?"

"What? Oh! Yes. Afraid I have, silly me . . . "

" _And_ the one I gave you the week before that? And the week before that, too?"

"Right!" Molly laughs, edging on hysterical, now.

Sherlock does not relish the idea of actually turning around to face her. The last time he'd done that, she'd asked him to show her the proper finger placement for every note she wasn't quite sure about, which had turned out to be all of them.

"Oh, I'm simply a mess! It's always just in one ear and out the other, with me . . . ahaha! Mm."

Sherlock sighs, reaches across his long suffering stand partner to steal Greg's pencil—"Oi! What the hell, Sherlock?"—and tosses it back to Molly without looking.

" _Ow_! I mean, thank you!"

*

"Scoot your chair over," says the new girl. She's the latest on Sherlock's roster of stand partners. None of them ever seem to last very long.

Sherlock ignores her, continues playing.

"I _said_." The girl kicks Sherlock's chair. " _Scoot_." And then his foot. "Your _chair_. _Over_. There now, isn't that better?" She smiles to herself and brings her violin up to start in on the same line.

"It's spiccato, there," Sherlock advises.

"Sorry?"

"You aren't playing it spiccato."

"Hm, well in that case . . ." The girl smacks the music with her bow to indicate the next passage. "Maybe I should point out that _you_ aren't playing that muted."

"Because it's anachronistic. This is clearly just an addition of the editor's for the idiots who can't be bothered to play actual pianissimo. Bach would never have put in any such marking because 1) violin mutes were not in widespread use during his lifetime and, 2) markings in 18th century manuscripts were never as specific as they are in these parts. Musicians were expected to improvise, much of the time, and in any case Baroque stylistic and playing practice was mainly understood and didn’t need to be explicitly indicated. Spiccato didn't used to be much different from staccato, in fact, but that's a whole other _thing_. Furthermore, the very tonality of this entire piece has been sacrificed for the sake of making it more 'playable'—i.e., dumbing it down beyond all recognition—for amateur orchestras."

The girl grins, a bit wild-eyed.

Sherlock finds himself wanting to grin back. "Patience, intelligence, speed—the powers of the violinist."

The girl's let her grin drop to a sly little smirk, now. "You know, I'm hungry. Let's have dinner, after this."

"Well, I—" Sherlock had planned on waiting with John after rehearsal on the steps, like always. He looks across the crowd of strings to the wind section and makes sudden, blatant eye contact with him. So, John had been watching them. He tries to play it off by snatching up his clarinet and turning back to his music and promptly cracking a note.

The way John looks when he's distressed, brows wrinkled and eyes gone vulnerable and mouth parted on disbelief . . . Sherlock feels compelled to produce this look as often as possible. He's inexplicably pleased to have upset him merely by talking to somebody else.

The girl is still smirking at him.

Sherlock isn't sure what he wants.

*

"John."

"Oh sorry, if you need me to move off the . . . steps . . . or." John gapes. His face gives the impression of betraying everything, that he is an open book and communicates exactly what he's thinking with authentic-looking smiles or disapprovingly pursed lips. But the problem is that he never succeeds in completely censoring his eyes. They'd glint with mirth despite a carefully serious expression. They'd ring loud with deadness beneath disingenuous enthusiasm. "Sherlock."

Because they're apparently stating each other's names: "John."

" _Jesus_ , is that really you?" John stands up, reaches out—up, now, actually—to touch his face. Sherlock is fairly certain this isn't normal behavior. "You're so _tall_."

"Growth spurt." Sherlock squints down at John. "When are you due for yours?"

"Shut up, I'm eighteen. I think mother nature's given up on me, at this point."

"Well, you still have gray hair to look forward to." John's hair was such a deceptive hue—dark in a badly lit room, copper in the sunshine, always somehow bright and ordinary, at once. It was piecey and unbrushed-looking, but still fell effortlessly into place. Maybe Sherlock hasn't paid it much attention before because until recently he'd been several inches shorter than him.

"Your voice is so . . . " John licks his lips. "Er, mature." He becomes aware of himself, blinks and backs off. Looks over Sherlock's shoulder and his face changes. "Did you come here in a town car?"

Sherlock sighs. "Yes. My brother insists on chauffeuring me around the big bad inner city. Well, he insists on the chauffeur chauffeuring me."

"Didn't know you had a brother."

"Oh yes," Sherlock says. "And he fancies himself my caretaker now, despite the fact that I've never been particularly closely cared for. Quite the maternal instinct, my brother has. Mother is envious." Well, she was whenever she wasn't engrossed in some perpetually new, perpetually demanding project.

Apparently John still isn't finished raking his eyes over Sherlock. "No tie, today?"

"Not really my style, anymore." Sherlock pushes past him and jogs up the steps to avoid any further, unquenchably John-ish concern.

In the half-empty rehearsal space, they go their separate ways to practice before the maestro makes his grand entrance. Sherlock looks around at the influx of musicians while he tunes.

Most of what Sherlock observed in people was routine, mundane data, but there were particular people for whom he didn't simply notice moods and clothes and obvious histories. For some people, there was another layer of awareness on top of those little cue cards of information.

They probably wouldn't appreciate the _way_ Sherlock explained it to himself, but he didn't know how else to make sense of such illogical, instinctive reactions:

Greg was perpetually too flat. Molly was perpetually too quiet. Sally landed at a solid, strong tritone apart from Sherlock and refused to budge while her weaselly little viola dogsbody harmonized around her obnoxiously, and _always_ too sharp.

The girl hovered resonantly at an octave above him, and moved, scandalously parallel, with Sherlock's sudden glissandos. The maestro, who mostly stayed behind the scenes, thrummed along and in untroubled basso continuo that leapt up to weave counterpoint with Sherlock, every so often.

John, however, was both stable and not. He came the closest to sounding in unison with Sherlock, but would often creep furtive semitones away and slot snugly into thirds above or below him, major or minor, depending, but always essential, and always ringing there as an overtone even after he'd gone.

Sherlock is engrossed in practicing Tchaikovsky when the background gossip of some female violinists reaches his ears.

"No, let's not invite Harriet, this time, please. She's such a bore."

"She's not a _bore_ . . . it's just that she has different, er, _interests_ than we do."

"Bit annoying, really."

"I suppose. But what's even more annoying is how every decent bloke is all over her every time we _do_ go out."

"Not fair, is it?"

"It's really not." A pause. "She's not even _that_ attractive . . . "

"Harriet's a perfectly lovely girl, personality-wise, although she might at least make an effort to look more presentable. Some eyeliner never hurt anyone."

"She _does_ have a lovely personality, but we're always being forced to accommodate her, like."

"Right, exactly! I mean, when you think about it, it's awfully rude of her to impose on us with all of her, well, you know, not that there's anything _wrong_ with that but . . . it's just a bit rude not to even consider how much of a hassle it is, for us, you know?"

"All they ever do is demand special treatment. And if you aren't okay with that, you're just a bigot by default. You know how it is with benders . . . "

Sherlock looks over to John. It's clear that John has been death-glaring these two for some time.

". . . Do they ever stop to think their, you know, _predilections_ might put others off? I mean, I don’t go around flaunting my preferences. And mine aren't even abnormal."

John continues to stare, utterly immobile in a somewhat terrifying way.

"Sure, I mean, it's okay to be 'like that' but, it just makes you feel uncomfortable, sometimes, you know?"

"Yes, exactly! It's like you're walking on eggshells all the time with her, now."

"To be quite honest, I've never liked Harriet all that much, to begin with. I mean, she's lovely, but . . . she always _has_ been rather off."

"I suppose it all makes sense, now."

John carefully puts his clarinet on its peg, carefully turns his stand sideways and walks past Sally carefully. She watches with wide eyes, sinks back into her seat and moves her reed-making knife a bit farther out of reach.

"I mean, why should we feel obligated to invite her out in the first place just to be politically correct or whatever? She's just not any _fun_ , like this."

John carefully picks up one of the girls' bows and snaps it carefully in two.

Every murmured conversation and vague bit of noodling around abruptly ceases.

John holds the bow up to examine his work. It dangles sadly, horsehairs snapping. "Huh. It would probably be more convenient for you if it just _wasn't_ bent," he remarks, then drops it and walks silently back to his chair, picks his clarinet up to play a series of nonchalant arpeggios.

Sherlock doesn't even try to hide his grin.

After rehearsal, Sherlock finds John on the steps outside, waiting. "So you actually enjoy it," Sherlock says.

"Enjoy what?"

"Being your sister's loyal little guard dog."

"She's my sister," John says, like that explains everything.

". . . So?"

"She's my _sister_."

Sherlock thinks that the still-simmering heat in John's eyes means he ought to leave well enough alone.

*

Of course Sherlock picks him out of the audience before the concert's even started. And after it's over, finding him is easy.

"Oh—Sherlock? Hey." John nods at the stage. "I see the maestro's still at it. Has he asked you back for next season, yet? You've only another two years before you're too old, like me."

Sherlock shrugs. "Probably my answer has crossed his mind."

"Anyway—great concert. Loved The Thieving Magpie." John's trying not to beam too brilliantly at him. "So, how've you been, then?"

"Your choice or your parents'?"

"Sorry what?" The way John inclines his head makes Sherlock want to analyze him, catalog every strain of muscle and tiny shift of hair, the cast of mild shadows over familiar features.

"Dallying over going to university. Is it your choice or your parents'?"

"How did you . . . " John seems to weigh his options. " _Why_ do I give you the time of day, again?" John has to be contained, somehow. His easy movements, and the flick of his eyes up at Sherlock have to be contained.

Sherlock flashes a tiny smile. "Come with me."

"Why?"

"Come _on_." Sherlock pulls his coat tighter around himself. "I live nearby, and you've got nothing better to do."

John bites his lip. "Oh, shut up," he says, but shrugs into his jacket and follows Sherlock out the door.

A few brisk blocks later:

"Jesus," John breathes.

"It's not much, but it's home."

John cranes his neck like a tourist as he crosses the threshold. "Well no wonder you're out of touch with reality. _This_ isn't reality."

Sherlock shuts the door, takes John's jacket. Which is to say, he rips it off amid sputtered protests and his inelegance results in John stumbling against him, clutching at Sherlock's coat in such a way that drags Sherlock even closer. John blinks rapidly, grayishgreenly close, then makes a hasty retreat.

Sherlock follows him into the parlor. He notices John's accelerated breathing, his inability to meet Sherlock's eyes as he gives him an obligatory tour, the startled quality to his laughter whenever Sherlock steers him with a hand at the small of his back.

"And this is my room," Sherlock says.

"Right, very nice. Very nice indeed. Bit messy, but you'll have this, won't you . . . Say, is something _bubbling_ in the corner there or—Sherlock what are you doing?"

"Close your eyes."

"What? Why? _Why_? What are you do-ohh _mmf_!"

Sherlock gets in a decent amount of kissing before John shoves him away.

"What . . . are we doing?"

"We're 'getting off'—I believe that's what the kids are calling it, these days."

" _You're_ a kid."

"Mm, sort of."

"Huh." John kisses him, this time. Sherlock finds John's instant eagerness fascinating. It really wasn't very wise, the way John accepted things so easily.

And then John moans into his mouth and Sherlock is struck by the idea that John is delicious, somehow. Got to contain him.

Sherlock backs John up against the armoire, kisses him some more and even gets him to moan some more. John's hands catch in the fabric of Sherlock's shirt, twist and tug him closer.

The height difference is challenge, and Sherlock has to take John's face in his hands and tilt it up before the kiss can deepen properly. John seems to approve, lets Sherlock's tongue into his mouth and sucks on it, gasps the kiss apart for a moment so he can do the same to him—Sherlock's fingers weave more tightly through his hair in an effort to fight against such sudden, heated dizziness.

Muffled, amused sound from John and he slips away from the armoire, kisses Sherlock quiet before he can say anything and leads him dizzily over to the bed before he can think. And amid this spinny, lust-clogged world John appears above him, straddles Sherlock's hips and kisses him definitively down into pillows. Sherlock arcs up involuntarily, hands roaming over John's back. He finds himself groaning when John grinds his hips against Sherlock's, then keeps repeating the movement throughout a lengthy, languid kiss and Sherlock is blissfully breathless with anticipation.

John kisses along his jaw, down to suck at his neck. He seems rather breathless, himself. Asks, "Are you, uh . . a virgin?"

"Yes. You?"

"Yeah. Well, a bit."

"And how exactly does _that_ work?"

"Got a few hasty handjobs. I don't know . . ."

"From blokes," Sherlock states.

"Well . . . yes, but, it's not like it's always . . . Yes, all right. It's always blokes." John sighs, sits back a little.

Sherlock studies him. "Why do you go to such lengths to be perceived as straight?"

"Well, you know . . . my parents already have Harry to deal with, on that front, and _now_ she's off at uni partying it up and doing God knows what else, and they really don't need anything further to worry about, and . . . It's fine, really, and I don't mind, because, you know, why burden them even more? It's not a big deal. Maybe somewhere down the road I'll tell—"

"You won't."

"Yeah I probably won't." John sighs again, then looks Sherlock in the eye. "So. You were saying?"

"Mm." Sherlock pulls him close again.

John trails sucking kisses down Sherlock's neck, lingers at the juncture of neck and shoulder at Sherlock's gasp before unbuttoning his shirt and continuing hotly down his body. John's tongue dips into Sherlock's bellybutton, eliciting another unprecedented jolt of arousal while he works Sherlock's trousers open. Sherlock finds himself staring helplessly, sure the mere sight of John so carelessly eager is more satisfying than anything else that's about to happen.

He's proven quickly wrong when John's mouth closes softly around the head of Sherlock's cock, soft heat and soft swipe of tongue just underneath before taking Sherlock in deeper. Sherlock can _feel_ his eyes widen, can't stop staring at familiar, ordinary, surprising John's tensed shoulders and busy tongue and occasional, inscrutably colored glances up at him.

John encircles the base of Sherlock's cock with one hand while the other rolls Sherlock's balls teasingly, sucking harder and bobbing his head more rhythmically and Sherlock's overwhelmed by the mere fact that this is happening when he hadn't consciously contemplated it before, overwhelmed by the fact that he has possibly wanted this too desperately to articulate. John hums around the cock in his mouth, pulls off it with a tonal sort of exhale to lick languorously from base to tip, looks up at him and murmurs, with his lips brushing the head, "Sherlock?"

Sherlock chokes on a gasp, shivers when John takes him in again. He can't help rolling his hips up into the magic of John's mouth, and John stills him with strong hands after awhile, holds him firmly down while sucking him in and out and _fuck_ , it's just too much, it's just too . . . fuck . . . " _Fuck_ . . . it's just . . . too . . ."

John goes deep, then sucks hard on the upstroke and retreats with a pop. He incorporates both hands to pump Sherlock's cock, slick with saliva and hot with the memory of his mouth, jerks him fast and perfectly pressured and fastens his eyes to Sherlock's. John's hair's a mess and his mouth is obscenely wet and his cheeks are brilliantly red. "Getting close?" he says, and Sherlock hadn't known John could speak in such a persuasively velvet voice.

Sherlock nods, too breathless to comment. John shifts up to lie next to him, kisses his neck suckingly while he jerks him harder, and Sherlock gasps and strains his head back and comes.

Once he's blinked the blankness of orgasm away, he turns his to find John on his back with his eyes scrunched closed, trousers open and one hand working his cock roughly while the other clutches the duvet.

Sherlock slides down the bed, catches John's hands and presses them into the mattress. John blinks dazedly at him. "Sherlock, shit, I'm so close, I'll go off in a second if you . . ."

"That’s rather the point," Sherlock says, lets John's cock bump against his cheek before dipping to take it into his mouth.

John makes a wonderfully uncontrolled sound, hands twitching—Sherlock tightens his grip on them, which means that he can't stop John from bucking his hips, but Sherlock finds he rather likes that, and anyway it's easy enough to back off a bit when he starts to choke.

John's alternately moaning and apologizing and begging as he fucks Sherlock's mouth: " _Please_ . . . oh shit, shit, sorry, I didn't mean . . . oh God _yes_ . . . I'm gonna . . . oh _shit_!"

Warm salty bursts into Sherlock's mouth as John comes, body gone instantly slack. Sherlock swallows it because that seems efficient, and when he sits up and wipes his mouth he finds John grinning at him from where he's laid out on Sherlock's bed, half-dressed and delightfully debauched. He reaches up to poke Sherlock vaguely in the chest. "Sexy."

Sherlock frowns, scoots up the bed to lie next to him. It seems like the thing to do. "Yes, that was sex, John. Very astute."

"Mmshutup." John somehow manages to curl up against him, and it's not like Sherlock can just up and leave or shove him away . . .

John's hair tickles Sherlock's face. His breath warms Sherlock's neck.

*

"Aren't you a little old to still be in this orchestra?" John asks him after a concert.

Sherlock shrugs, jogs ahead of him down the steps just to force John to catch up. "I'm more of their consulting orchestra leader, at this point."

"Consulting orchestra leader?" John says, appearing in Sherlock's peripheral vision. "Is that a real thing?"

"I made it up."

"Course you did. So, is that it, then? No further ambitions aside from occasionally showing off for the maestro when you're bored?"

"You're in no position to judge. What sort of ambitions do _you_ have?"

John sputters. "I'm in bloody medical school!"

"Well, it mustn't be very challenging, considering the amount of time you spend following me around . . . "

"Those are dates, Sherlock. We go on _dates_."

"Hm."

"You really don't have _normal_ relationships with anyone, do you?"

"No," Sherlock admits. "I have you, though."

John just smiles, jogs ahead of him. "Come on, then."

*


End file.
